Three-Way Race To 3D-ICs

By Ed Sperling - 05 May, 2025 - Comments: 1

Intel Foundry, TSMC, and Samsung Foundry are scrambling to deliver all the foundational components of full 3D-ICs, which collectively will deliver orders of magnitude improvements in performance with minimal power sometime within the next few years. Much attention has been focused on process node advances, but a successful 3D-IC implementation is much more complex and comprehensive than just... » read more

Research Bits: Apr. 1

By Jesse Allen - 01 Apr, 2025 - Comments: 0

Neuro-synaptic RAM Researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) found that a standard silicon transistor can function like a biological neuron and synapse when arranged and operated in a specific way. The team was able to replicate both neural firing and synaptic weight changes by adjusting the resistance of the b... » read more

High-Speed High-Capacity Mixed-Signal Simulation Of Silicon Photonics

By Paul Graykowski - 27 Mar, 2025 - Comments: 0

Many of today’s computing and communications applications demand almost unimaginable processing capability and high-bandwidth access to memory. For example, many data center systems using high-end Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) often need to transfer multiple terabytes per second. Traditional copper-based interconnects, limited to speeds of hundreds of megabits per second (Mbps), cannot ... » read more

Step Towards 3D PICs: Low Loss Fiber-Coupled Interconnects (UIUC)

By Technical Paper Link - 16 Jul, 2024 - Comments: 0

A new technical paper titled "Low loss fiber-coupled volumetric interconnects fabricated via direct laser writing" was published by researchers at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Abstract "Photonic integrated circuits (PICs) are vital for high-speed data transmission. However, optical routing is limited in PICs composed of only one or a few stacked planes. Further, coupling ... » read more

An All-Optical General-Purpose CPU And Optical Computer Architecture (Akhetonics)

By Technical Paper Link - 11 Mar, 2024 - Comments: 0

A technical paper titled “An All-Optical General-Purpose CPU and Optical Computer Architecture” was published by researchers at Akhetonics. Abstract: "Energy efficiency of electronic digital processors is primarily limited by the energy consumption of electronic communication and interconnects. The industry is almost unanimously pushing towards replacing both long-haul, as well as local c... » read more

Shedding More Light On Photonics For Multi-Die Systems

By Kenneth Larsen - 21 Dec, 2023 - Comments: 0

By Kenneth Larsen and Twan Korthorst Photonics harness the speed of light for fast, low-power, high-capacity data transfer. A tremendous amount of data needs to be moved swiftly across different components in a multi-die system. Considering this, exploiting the advantages of light is one way to mitigate heat dissipation and energy consumption concerns while delivering fast data transmission.... » read more

AI Drives Need For Optical Interconnects In Data Centers

By Karen Heyman - 28 Sep, 2023 - Comments: 0

An explosion of data, driven by more sensors everywhere and the inclusion of AI/ML in just about everything, is ratcheting up the pressure on data centers to leverage optical interconnects to speed up data throughput and reduce latency. Optical communication has been in use for several decades, starting with long-haul communications, and evolving from there to connect external storage to ser... » read more

Research Bits: September 19

By Jesse Allen - 19 Sep, 2023 - Comments: 0

Measuring lithography plasma sources Researchers from the University of Twente developed a tool that can measure the size of a plasma source and the color of the light it emits simultaneously, which they say could be used to improve lithography machines. “Traditionally, we could only look at the amount of light produced, but to further improve the chipmaking process, we also want to study... » read more

Impact of Semiconductor Optical Amplifers On Performance & Power Consumption in Data Centers (UCSB)

By Technical Paper Link - 22 May, 2023 - Comments: 0

A new technical paper titled "Integrated SOAs enable energy-efficient intra-data center coherent links" was published by researchers at UC Santa Barbara. "In this work, we analyze the impact of integrated semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) on link performance and power consumption, and describe the optimal design spaces for low-cost and energy-efficient coherent links. Placing SOAs afte... » read more

Multi-Wavelength, Multimode Communication Scheme For On-Chip and Chip-to-Chip Interconnects

By Technical Paper Link - 02 Jan, 2023 - Comments: 0

A technical paper titled "Multi-dimensional data transmission using inverse-designed silicon photonics and microcombs" was published by researchers at Stanford, Harvard, University of Central Florida, NIST, and others. "Here we demonstrate an integrated multi-dimensional communication scheme that combines wavelength- and mode- multiplexing on a silicon photonic circuit. Using foundry-compati... » read more

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tag: optical interconnects